Who Am I? - teknotus means Take Notice

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Who Am I?

My life has been changing quickly. I have been feeling like I am caught in a river of change. I have thought on a regular basis this year. Who is doing these things? Is it really me?

Today I took the personality test again, and I tested as someone completely different from who I thought I was. This threw me off. I took it again, and I was yet another person unlike myself. I started playing with answers to figure out what I answered before, what I was. I started to remember. I remember that two years ago I was very unhappy. I desperately wanted things to change.

First I worked on what I was good at, and making it better. Getting exercise, reading, solving problems. I learned to ride a unicycle, and 3D math programming on my own. I started to work on developing my inner talents. I wanted to solve a problem that had never been solved. I wanted to tell the stories in my heart. This was to be one of the loneliest chapters in my life.

It came to be that I could not get myself to start work every day. I would mope about. I wasn’t making much progress. People didn’t acknowledge what progress I did make. I started trying to turn to people for advice, and I found I didn’t really have a good place to turn. My few friends didn’t seem to be able to understand what I was going through. All except one.

There was this girl that always seemed to have the answer I needed. My personal Oracle. She wasn’t even my friend though. I knew that I would have a constant supply of advice if she was my friend. Previously every time I made a friend it was by accident, or something that the other person actively pursued. My skills at the time were not well developed. I mostly just annoyed her. I gave up.

My focus changed from advancing myself to curing my loneliness. I knew just where to start too. A dreaded tech support call center. My car was dying, and I didn’t have money to replace it. My friend told me about the call center job that I could easily get. I needed a distraction from my current situation. I went for the job, and I took it.

One of the things about call centers that makes you learn so much about people is how the people taking calls have a tendency to mute the caller, and say what they really think. People are not always honest with how they feel when the speak to other people. Talking to many people every day helps understand people as well. I know that I had learned a lot at the last call center I worked at. I knew I would again.

One unexpected coincidence of my new job was that I was seated near a coworker from a previous job that I had tried to get to know, and failed. I think she may have specifically not liked me when I started working there. She was the first friend I made. This made me happy for three reasons. 1)I made a friend 2) It was not an accident that we became friends 3) It gave me hope that I could fix the mistakes I make in trying to make friends.

I got much, much better at making friends over the months. People started visiting my cubicle, and greeting me by name when I got to work. I know that I made friends there. I started the foundation for many friendships that have yet to be fully built. Since I quit my job, and have an open schedule I keep finding opportunities to do things with people. With a little effort I might be able to find something to do with a different person every day of the week.

In June I started to change my focus again. Instead of just making lots of friends I wanted to also make at least one really good friend. There are plenty of people I know who could become good friends that I would like to spend time with regularly. I couldn’t think of ONE who could become my BESTEST friend though. On a whim I thought lets do a search. That search has not yielded a best friend yet, but I have met a bunch of interesting people because of it.

So many people have listed me as friends in live journal that it now takes significant effort just to read what is going on in other peoples lives. A few more, and I probably will start skimming journals instead of automatically reading them all.

This gets me back to where I started. I was worried that I had changed myself to make people like me. Really I just changed my habits. My little social experiment to find out about people has made my life revolve around people instead of ideas. Feelings instead of thoughts. What other people want instead of what I want. Social facts instead of abstract notions of the universe.

I am concluding the experiment, and going back to acting like me. This does not mean that I will stop being your friends, or forget what I have learned about people. I need friends now as much as I ever have in my whole life, but if I keep my habits as they are now my sense of self will vanish. I am going to need some time to figure things out. Try not to think that I am shutting you out.

My life is so much better, and happier for knowing the people I have met this year. I got all teary eyed, and had to take a break before starting this paragraph.

(no subject)

I think your desperation for friends really creeps people out. But I think it's good that you plunge yourself into social situations, because you have a lot to lean in that area. Try not to be so much the observant robot, and more the emotional blob of skin.